Thursday, 19 August 2010

and breathe...

I am T minus 2 days away from my mother's 50th birthday party in Brighton, and I am responsible for providing the cake. I am stressed about this on several levels......

My plan is to bake a chocolate sandwich with a layer of chocolate whipped cream between and on top, to place this on a cake board and garnish with fresh white and pink roses, with pink candied rose petals scattered on top. Fine. Except I also have to get it to Brighton intact and fresh, and that means surviving a 4 hour car-journey. The cake is for 20 people.

It'll be ok though, because I have an elaborate plan to transport everything separately- sponges, cream, flowers, and assemble at the restaurant. I'm trying not to think about it, mostly.

On the other hand I did manage to get Robert Opie's '1920's Scrapbook' on sale at work...

It's a fantastic collection of newspapers, adverts, and memorabilia, arranged into chapters such as 'hair and hats'. Excellent social history record, and very nice to open randomly and pore over. There is also a '1930's Scrapbook' which I'd love to get hold of...

Speaking of social history, top of my wishlist at the moment is this book by Shirley Hughes. It contains a painting for every other year from 1900 to 1950, and 2 pages of text and black and white drawings summarising the social, cultural, and political history of that year. Most of the paintings depict meals, and my favourite is the very first...the kitchen of the grand townhouse.

I just got my registration papers back from the OU, I am officially started on my history degree, an ambition of some 6 years standing....so excited!

4 comments:

Make sure you dress warmly for the car ride! A friend made our wedding cake, and drove with it from Plymouth to Tintagel in mid-August. She had the air conditioning in the car on full-blast (was a chocolate cake) and by the time they arrived her boyfriend was blue with the cold!

I once had to transport 150 cupcakes and a two layer cake from NJ to Northern VT for a wedding (oh, and 130 iced cookies and 130 homemade chocolates). In June! The car ride was never so cold in order to keep things "fresh". I didn't ice the cake until we got there - which helped A LOT and meant I could leave them in their tins a little longer - whew. Best of luck - i'm sure it will all turn out fabulous!

Good luck with the cake - it sounds like you've got a good plan there - and it sounds like it will look so pretty.I once transported a fully assembled quite sloppy but very nice trifle in its bowl in a bucket via bus and foot across Edinburgh when I was a student, but I think your achievement with the cake will be greater! xx